Google’s Milestone Chip Can Achieve Quantum Supremacy By The End Of 2017

Short Bytes: By the end of 2017, Google might be able to come up with a device that could achieve quantum supremacy, being able to perform a calculation that’ll be beyond the abilities of conventional chips. The research team at Google is preparing a 50 qubit chip which might set a benchmark in the field of quantum computing.

Back in 2014, Google’s Quantum AI team first announced their intentions to build a new quantum computing chip. John Martinis and his team were invited under Google’s roof to help them accomplish this task. Now, almost two years later, the team is quite satisfied with their research.

By the end of this year, it’s very likely that Google could push some quantum computing chip that’ll be far beyond the conventional computing chips.

Their latest quantum chip – briefed by Martinis at the IEEE TechIgnite Conference in San Bruno – has its qubits arranged in two-by-three fashion. He says that the arrangement shows their tech also works when qubits are arranged side by side, as in the case of larger devices.

The manufacturing process involves designing the qubits and the wiring that controls them on separate chips and then bump bonding them together. Their approach is intended to eliminate extra control lines needed for larger chips that could mess with the working of qubits.

Martinis’ team is now working on a chip with around 50 qubits which will help them achieve quantum supremacy. According to him, if such experiment becomes reality it could set a benchmark for other people.

However, Google is not the only one trying to build a 50 qubit unconventional computing tech. IBM is also working on 50 qubit computer. This was known last month when the company made their existing computing resources available to commercial users via their cloud platform.